The technique of laser evaporation, known in the art as laser ablation, has been applied to a large class of materials ranging from polymers to semiconductors and dielectrics. This technique has been applied extensively to form thin films of inorganic material, such as ceramic oxides exhibiting superconductivity, to fill the demands of the electronics industry for device applications such as radio frequency and microwave technology, see, for example, D. Dijkkamp at al., Appl. Phys. Lett., 51, 619-621 (1987). Oriented silicon carbide films by laser ablation of silicon carbide targets are described by L. Rimai et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 59 (18), 28 Oct. 1991, pp. 2266-2268, wherein it is noted that the resulting films often contain material other than SiC. Japanese Patent 03166358 describes a method for producing stoichiometric films of inorganic oxide, nitride and carbide by irradiating a target by a laser and depositing the clusters so formed onto a substrate to form a thin film, wherein plasma is generated synchronously with the laser irradiation.
Laser ablation applied to organic materials, particularly polymers, has been confined primarily to etching, i.e., selective removal of polymeric material from a polymeric target to form a patterned surface on the target. For example, the photoetching of polyimide is described by S. Mihailov et al., J. Appl. Phys. 69 (7), 1 Apr. 1991, pp. 4092-4102. Laser ablation of fluoropolymer composite laminates to render the laminates absorptive to ultra violet radiation is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,915,981.